Why we're moving n8n's automation team beyond the service desk model

Romina da Costa, n8n's head of internal AI and automation, argues that a centralized automation team that only builds workflows shifts the bottleneck downstream rather than fixing it, and that with over 12,000 internal workflows no team can build and maintain them all. She describes reframing the team's goal from throughput to building an automation culture, guided by four principles: build the builders, require a baseline before building, choose the tool for the problem, and make what's built resilient. She notes the team still operates like a service desk more often than she'd like, and that shifting culture requires leadership buy-in and cross-functional change.